of smoke
that he could barely distinguish through it a feeble glimmer from the
cabin lamp, he made his way in the direction of the state-room
appropriated to Blanche and Violet. The smoke got into his eyes and
made them water; into his throat and made him cough violently; into his
lungs, producing an overpowering sense of suffocation, and impressing
unmistakably upon him the necessity for rapidity and decision of
movement. Blind, giddy, breathless, he staggered onward, groping for
the handle of the state-room door. At length he found it, wrenched the
door open, and rapidly felt with hands and feet about the floor and in
each berth. No one there. Where then could Blanche be? She was not on
deck, and it was hardly probable she could have fallen overboard. Then
as he hastily began the search anew his foot kicked against something on
the floor, which he at once picked up. It was a boot--a man's boot
unmistakably, from its size and weight. This at once satisfied him that
in the obscurity he had groped his way into the wrong state-room; and he
must prosecute his search further.

But he was suffocating. Already his brain began to reel; there was a
loud humming in his ears; his eyes ached and felt as though they would
burst out of their sockets; and he found his strength ebbing away like
water. Should he at once prosecute his search further? That seemed
physically impossible. But if Blanche were in that fatal atmosphere she
must soon die, if not dead already. And if he left the cabin to obtain
a breath of fresh air was he not likely to go astray again, and lose
still more precious time? No; the search must be proceeded with _at
once_; and, reeling like a drunken man, Lance felt for the state-room
door, staggered into the saloon, and felt along the bulkhead for the
handle of the next door. Oh, heavens! what a search that was. His head
felt as though it would burst; he gasped for breath, and inhaled nothing
but hot pungent smoke; the saloon seemed to be miles instead of yards in
length. Thank God! at last; the handle is found and turned, and the
door flung open. Lance, with the conviction that unless he can escape
in a very few seconds he will die, gropes wildly round and into the
berths. Ah! what is this? Something coiled-up at the foot of the
bottom berth. A human body! A woman! Lance grasps it tightly in his
arms; stumbles out through the door with it, along the saloon, through
the passage. A roaring